


Tanetane

by Comrade Lucia (Quantin_of_the_Lethe)



Series: The Adventures of Lucia [4]
Category: Mother 3
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Childhood Trauma, Gen, Hallucinations, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kumatora hits on Lucia hard, Looooots of deadnaming, Lucas/Lucia is the only one hallucinating, No Shrooms, Schizophrenia, Trans Female Character, Trans Girl Lucas (Mother 3)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:33:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27435883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quantin_of_the_Lethe/pseuds/Comrade%20Lucia
Summary: On a strange island, Lucia finds out more about herself than she bargained for.
Series: The Adventures of Lucia [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1994812
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Tanetane

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!
> 
> I *massively* edited this fic. I didn't like the demonic possession angle. It's shorter, but I think better.

Lucia didn't care much for sand.

Especially when she felt like someone had played her spine like an accordion.

"Lucia!"

Her eyes fluttered open. Blinding light seared her retinas. She squeezed them back shut. "BRIGHT!" she yelled. "Hurts!"

"Are you okay?" It was Kumatora's voice, oscillating from sounding far away to close to far away again.

"Eyes...hurt..."

"Your eyes hurt? From the sun?"

"Yes." She felt like she had to squeeze the word out of her throat. It hurt to talk.

"I think we..." Her voice faded out, then in again. "...we are."

"Wha-?"

"-CIA!" Her scream hurt, and hurt badly. It felt like a sonic cannon. But Lucia was too weak to care.

"Can't."

"Can't what?"

"Can't..." Her voice strained. "Hear." Kumatora kneeled down until her lips nearly met Lucia's ear.

"I think we're on an island. I don't know where we are." Lucia nodded weakly to acknowledge she heard.

"What hurts, dear?"

"Head. Eyes. Back. E-rry-thun." Lucia felt her body softly set into the cool sand.

"C'mon, you, you're not dying on me," Kumatora said firmly, and suddenly the small girl felt strong yet capable hands pick her up and carry her. "Is she..." She heard Duster's voice, but it, too, was oscillating in and out of range. "...live?"

"Yeah, she'll live, but...[garbled noise]...food."

"Let's head into the forest, then," Duster said. "It'll be shadier there. I'm not feeling good either." They shuffled into the woods. Ominously, the trees seemed to shutter behind them, closing them off from the outside...and the sun.

* * *

They found themselves in a dark, dank forest. Noises of animals they didn't recognize rang through the forest. The three of them collapsed on the forest floor, completely wiped out. "What _is_ this place?" Kumatora muttered. The sweltering heat was causing her to soak her shirt with sweat. Her breathing was slightly labored. Sweat stung her eyes.

Duster looked around, and noticed a sign covered in vines. Etched long ago into the wood was the word TANETANE.

"Tanetane?" Lucia groaned. "Where the hell..."

"Shall we play a game?" a reedy voice called out to her from the din of the forest.

She felt like she needed to vomit, but instead of coming up through her esophagus, it felt like it was going to burst through her stomach wall. Her vision blurred, then shifted, as the world spun out of control.

"KUMATORA!" she screamed, or rather wanted to scream, because when she tried to use her voice, the world melted. The bright blue sky turned pink, but not the kind of pink that she liked; a sickly sweet pink, the kind that made her sick if she had too much of it. The trees turned a violent shade of magenta, their trunks as blue as the water used to be. The ground swirled in a fierce typhoon of purple, pink, and black.

She stood up, shockingly without too much trouble. Her body felt nonexistent one second, then there the next, then made of rubber the next. The world started to stabilize into...well, into _something_. Something horrifying, but something nonetheless. She felt a sudden rush of euphoria, and she started to laugh. Why? It came from feeling her id unlocking, freeing itself from its long imprisonment under the control of her superego, and filling her blood vessels, her nerves, her muscles, her lungs. She wasn't drowning, or succumbing to disease. She was letting her mind run free.

"Lucia?" came Kumatora's voice, but she sounded out of it too. She looked panicky, and slightly itchy. "H-hey," she said, smiling blankly. "You're gorgeous."

Lucia stumbled backwards. She did _not_ know how to feel about that.

"God," Kumatora slurred, "You're good enough to eat..."

"GET AWAY FROM ME, KUMATORA! Don't FUCKING touch me!"

"Lucia!" Kumatora yelled, somewhat angry. "I wasn't gonna touch--what's gotten into you!? You need to rest!" She looked somewhat normal again, but her voice was still distorted...and sometimes, not coming from her. "Come here, you need to lay down, you're deliri--" Suddenly a voice broke in on top of her, as if pretending to coming from her mouth, but discernibly _wasn't_. Instead of Kumatora's usual confidence, this had a hurried, desperate air.

_Boy-turned-Girl, how long you've roamed,_  
_With no family, far from home!_  
_Tanetane will provide_  
_A mom in which you can confide!_

"Who _are_ you!?" Lucia yelled, and she ran away from her party, into the forest. She needed to get away. From Kumatora. From Duster. From Boney. From _everyone_. She needed to be by herself. But the voices didn't stop, their mantric rhythm burrowing into her brain. She tried covering her ears, to no avail. It was coming from both outside and inside her. There was no stopping their relentless message.

_Boy-turned-Girl, scared you must be,_  
_Of the switch and belt, employed freely!_  
_Tanetane, from its maw,_  
_Will grant you a dad that won't beat you raw!_

"Where are you?" she asked, looking into the blackness. " _Who_ are you?" No response, but another verse of the poem:

_Boy-turned-Girl, raw and sore,_  
_Jealous of a brother beloved more._  
_Tanetane, the Fruitful Land,_  
_Will give you a loving brother again!_

Oh, God, did that sound so good. To have her family again, in one piece, but happier. Healthier. Less sad. She could see the images of her and Claus playing again, and it moved her to tears, tears she'd been keeping in for so long now, worried it would make the others call her "weakling" or "crybaby" again. Tears and crying became sobbing, which became loud wails of despair, causing nearby animals to skitter away. A dark shadow moved among the trees.

"I want my brother again," she sobbed. "I need my family back."

"Of course, dear, anything for you," said the voice.

* * *

Lucia thought it was just a mailbox. She had no reason to believe that the hot pink metal box would be anything but.

 _Lots of postcards for you!_ the mailbox screeched. _Come, let me read them for you!_

 _I *never* get mail!_ she thought. She walked up to the mailbox and opened up its deposit slot.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS IS CRYING AT A GRAVE."

Lucia stared into the inky blackness inside the mailbox.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS AND HIS DOG ARE LOITERING IN THE FOREST."

She didn't know how to respond. _If_ she could. Her hands trembled.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS IS GETTING INTO TROUBLE IN THE MOUNTAINS."

These accusations were silly. Baseless. Getting into trouble in the mountains?

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS STOLE FROM OUR GARDEN."

From whose garden? Who was making these claims? _Who the fuck does this motherfucker think he is, huh?_ said a small voice in her head, a voice she hadn't heard before.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS IS BULLYING ANIMALS."

Lucia could almost laugh. What was this mailbox trying to do? She'd never hurt an animal. The idea she would was almost laughable.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS LEARNED SOME BAD MAGIC."

 _Okay, this is stupid,_ she thought, and turned around to walk away.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS."

She stopped.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS."

"My name isn't Lucas anymore," she said.

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS."

"Stop that!" she said, getting angry. "I'm not Lucas!"

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAS."

"LUCAS IS DEAD!" She clutched at her hair, her dress, clawing at her skin. "LUCAS IS DEAD, LUCAS IS DEAD!"

"THE BOY NAMED LUCAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!" the mailbox yelled with a metallic screech. It let out a tremendous scream, then slammed shut.

"You said you'd provide me with a family!" she yelled at the void.

"Mmmm, I said the _island_ would provide you with one, darling. Patience is a virtue." As if on cue, a multitude of Clauses and Flints appeared throughout the forest, but they were decided not _her_ brother or father, or anything that could remotely pass as them. When one would see her, they would move towards her with incredible speed, trapping her.

One Claus leered threateningly over her, his two bright twinkling eyes sometimes glitching into one big one. "Hey, Luci, how 'bout we switch places?"

"What I would give to," she said, terrified. "I've wanted to since the day you went missing."

"But that means..." He grinned maliciously. "You'd be dead."

"I know."

"Now, what kind of dumbass wants to do that?"

"One who doesn't have much of a reason to live anymore!" she said angrily. "Plus, you're the one who suggested it!"

"Mhm, mhm, so I did, so I did!" He smiled again. "Hey, Luci, pull this ingrown hair."

"Ewwwww, Claus!" she said, disgusted but also giggling. _That_ was more like the Claus she knew. "You do it!"

"Fine by me." And when he pulled it, his entire body melted into blood, seeping into the forest floor without leaving so much as a scrap of red hair, leaving Lucia numbly staring at the ground. She heard something near her move. It was a giant Flint, seven feet tall, holding a leather belt.

She'd had enough. "I reject your gift!" she yelled at the forest. A deathly quiet fell. The Clauses and Flints stopped hunting her, collapsing into piles of cockroaches, bones, dust, and blood.

"Fine," said the voice. "Then I shall construct you a family out of _you_."

"KUMATORAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" she yelled, tearing through the forest, ignoring the angry thunderclaps from the sky above as the pink morphed into stark scarlet, ignoring the massive black shapes descending upon the earth. She was going to find her sister, she was going to find her dog, she was going to find the man who was ten times a better father than that deadbeat could ever _dream_ of bei--

_WHAM._

"Oh God, there you are!" Kumatora said. "We were wondering where you ran off to--" She stopped when she noticed the absolute state the small girl was in. Her beautiful blonde hair was horribly disheveled, her face red from crying and screaming, her hands trembling like she'd seen the coming of the End of Days. "They're coming, they're coming, oh God, Kuma, they're coming, they're gonna kill me."

"Woah, woah, woah, there's nobody here, what are you talking about? We found Mixolydia's cabin and the Needle, we just came back to see if you'd maybe returned, but there's nothing really evil here." But the way Lucia was gripping her dress, so hard she thought she was gonna tear holes in it, made her wonder if she'd seen something that _hadn't_ been there.

Lucia looked around. The sky was blue and sunny. It was still swelteringly hot out. No demonic family members hunting her. She fell to the ground. "Need...Mommy..."

Kumatora picked her up and held her in her arms. "Well, I'm not Mommy, but I'm the next best thing. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you."

She nodded softly, and with five seconds was out like a light. But just as she closed her eyes, she heard the voice.

 _Yes, go to sleep,_ he said. _In the absolute darkness. Don't do aaaanything. Don't see anyone. Just sleep. It'll be oh, so much fun......! Ohohohoho!_

Kumatora ran her fingers through the girl's hair. "Sweet dreams, kitty-cat," she whispered.


End file.
